Cautionary Note: Time Change. This year’s analysis of emerging research in the field of western American literature covers a somewhat different time frame than have past columns because it is now possible to immediately access the database that forms the basis for this research. Since the year 2000, research for this analysis has been conducted electronically through ProQuest Digital Dissertations, the primary publisher for all master's and doctoral theses, rather than through printed media. Initially, this electronic material, which adds roughly 47,000 new dissertations and 12,000 new theses from over 1,000 graduate schools and universities each year, was available only on CD-ROM format, to which libraries subscribed. Though saving libraries much time and money in collecting and binding the various monthly editions, the downside of this format was that the information was always at least six months behind.

Typically, this column covered, in accordance with the availability of the database, the time frame corresponding to ProQuest’s release of the information, reflecting a pattern roughly corresponding to a school year; volume 64/01, for example, contained the research released in June 2003. Due to improvements to ProQuest’s database, however, current research is now updated monthly and is immediately accessible online. With easier, more readily available access, the decision was made to run research data for this column along a calendar year rather than a school year, with the analysis itself to be published here. Full citations of titles will still be available online through the WAL website. Unfortunately, switching from a school year to a calendar year involved some overlapping, so it was decided for this time only to combine two years of research into one, thereby offering a smoother, more accurate transition. What appears online, in two separate documents, is the research for the calendar years 2002 and 2003; the analysis, however, synthesizes and analyzes the data from both years. Hence, the title above, “Research in Western American Literature, 2002 and 2003,” really means that all master's and doctoral theses from January 2002 through December 2003 have been considered for the analysis, and these are the titles listed online for each separate year.

Research Analysis. In many ways, the research for the past two years is all about power: gaining power, losing power; who has it, who doesn’t; how it is used, by whom. These are all issues underlying the 164 theses and 531 dissertations written during 2002 and 2003. Power plays a role in works having to do with identity, representation, ethnicity, race, borders, colonialism, regionalism, environment, and even sexuality—all topics that received the most emphasis for these two years. Not surprisingly, as many of the discussions took a postcolonial stance, the groups that most frequently comprised the subjects for these works were often cast into the role of the “Other,” although sometimes the subjects of such studies were themselves cast into an oppositional role, as in “White Women Writing for Their Lives: Ann Stephans, Elaine Goodale Eastman, and Ruth Benedict vis-à-vis the Native American Other.” Examining the entire body of studies for the two-year period revealed that a significant number of works (roughly one-third of the total works examined) focused on Native Americans, followed at some distance by studies relating to Chicano/a authors and experiences, though these still comprised a significant presence. A number of these works also related directly to Asian American authors and experiences, much more than the handful present in previous years. Titles like “The Representation of Internal Colonialism in Contemporary American Ethnic Fiction,” “Testaments of Colonialism: Six Native American Novels,” “Multiple Choice: Literary Racial Formations of Mixed Race Americans of Asian Descent,”or “Making It Home: The Neo-Colonial Ethics of Chicano and Latino Literature after Arrival” all point to these emphases. Interestingly, this same lens is extended to include authors on both sides of this literary border—those who write from a postcolonial stance as in “Writing against the Empire: McCarthy, Erdrich, Welch, and McMurtry” and those whose works represented views on race and colonization endemic in the nineteenth century, reflected in the title “The Colonizer Abroad: Island Representations in American Prose from Herman Melville to Jack London,” a study that also includes a discussion of Mark Twain’s work.

Indeed, borders played a large role in the studies that comprise this year’s analysis, both borders that encompass actual, physical space as well as psychic ones. “Blacks on the Borders: African-Americans Transition from Slavery to Freedom in Texas and the Indian Territory, 1836-1907,” “Policing the Border: Politics and Place in the Work of Miguel Mendez, Marisela Norte, and Leslie Marmon Silko,” and “A Truth Not Perfectly Visible: Culture and Cognition in the Borderline Narrative” all illustrate this range.

Identity was a topic returned to again and again in many forms, sometimes foregrounded in the title and sometimes merely alluded to; it spanned disciplines, race, ethnicity, and gender. Representative examples include “Injun Joe’s Ghost: A Genealogy of the Native American Mixed Blood in American Popular Fiction”; “‘That Mean Ol’ Oakie Boogie’: Country Music, Migration, and the Construction of Whiteness in Southern California, 1936-1969,” “Latina Literature: Differential and Politicized Hybrid Identities,” “Absent Origins, Fractured Narratives, and the Reconfiguration of Identities in Three Contemporary Canadian Novels” (by Tomson Highway, Thomas King, Dionne Brand), “Identifying Captivity and Capturing Identity: Narratives of American Indian Slavery. Colorado and New Mexico, 1776-1934,” and “Indian Voices: The Politics of Cultural Representation in Three United States Museums.” Not always did these take the form of postcolonial studies. Even longstanding subjects in western American literature get fresh treatment in terms of identity, as in an author—“An Artist Creates Herself: Willa Cather and Her Struggle for Legitimacy”—or the land itself—“Living on the Dragon’s Back: Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Identity in Deep Rural Montana” or “Culture and the Cowboy State: The Making of Westerners” (Wyoming).

An interesting twist on identity that became significantly foregrounded for the first time is sexuality, which both spanned borders and re-created its identity. Focusing sometimes on masculinity, sometimes on femininity, and sometimes on hybridity, this topic took on new dimensions. Titles representing the breadth of this diversity include “Inviolate Manhood: Isolation and Sexual Unavailability in Nineteenth Century American Literature” (James Fenimore Cooper), “Killing the Berdache and Raising the Two-Spirit: Continuing and Emerging Roles of American Indian Two-Spirits,” “Failure as a Way of Life: Ambivalence, Abjection, and the Making of Modern Lesbian Identity” (Willa Cather), “Perceived Family Relationships Associated with Coming Out of Mormon Male Homosexuals,” “The Development of Urban Two-Spirit Communities and the Role of American Indian Poets Paula Gunn Allen and Janice Gould,” “Race-ing Sex: The Competition for Gender and Sexual Identity in Multi-ethnic San Francisco, 1897-1924,” or “Cross Purposes: Transvestic Figures in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture” (Mark Twain).

Also new in terms of re-creating are subjects that make use of contemporary physics: “Applications of Chaos Theory to History in the Novels of Michael Ondaatje: Disorder within Order in The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Coming through Slaughter, and In the Skin of a Lion” or “Placing ‘The Sacred Pipe’: A Fractal Model for Lakota Ritual” (Black Elk). That is not to say that more traditional topics and/or authors found no place in current studies. They did. Studies on regionalism, sense of place, and the environment formed a significant portion of these two years’ topics, including an interesting “reaching back” to rediscover and reinterpret ecological roots, as reflected in two titles about Susan Fenimore Cooper: “Sentimental Ecology: Susan Fenimore Cooper and a New Model of Ecocriticism” and “Grounds for the New Nation: Con-structing Sense of Place in American Writings from 1780-1860.” A number of studies also focused on such authors of place and environment as Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, John Muir, Gary Snyder, Terry Tempest Williams, and Ann Zwinger. Studies on individual authors once again placed Mark Twain in the forefront with 28 different titles focusing on him, followed by Willa Cather with 19, Leslie Marmon Silko, 16, James Fenimore Cooper, 13, Maxine Hong Kingston,12, and Sandra Cisneros, 10, an apt reflection of the diversity prevalent in this year’s analysis.

All in all, a new dynamism appears to permeate the research in western American literature from these past two years, of which diversity is just one component. That fluidity so reflective of contemporary physics appears repeatedly in the transformative nature of the texts comprising these 695 theses and dissertations that are increasingly interdisciplinary in subject matter. It may not be possible to always know who holds the power or who is trying to wrest it, but as the research and analysis for this time frame bears out, it really is not so much the ultimate outcome that counts as the journey itself, a journey across borders of race, place, ethnicity, or sexuality. In these new regions, created by such border crossings, lie the nuclei of tomorrow’s western American literature.

[Editor’s note:
All entries in this listing have been taken from Dissertation Abstracts International. We have made no attempt to change the sentence-style capitalization of the titles to headline capitalization, the latter of which we normally use in Western American Literature. Any misspellings of names as well as any inconsistencies in format are also DAI’s. Entries are listed by title, author, and institution.]

RESEARCH IN WESTERN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 2003

Master’s Theses:

MA=master of artsMArch=master of architectureMFA=master of fine artsMJ=master of journalismMNRM=master of natural resource managementMS=master of scienceMSW=master of social work

American Literature:

Chicana identity in the works of Ana Castillo by Collins, Stacy Lynn, MA CENTRAL MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY, 2002

Creating a new genre: Mary Rowlandson and her narrative of Indian captivity by De Luise, Rachel Bailey, MA EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY, 2002

Hamlin Garland’s truth about farming: An examination of realism and romanticism in Hamlin Garland’s early works by Ensley, Eric William, MA CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, DOMINGUEZ HILLS, 2002

Religious turmoil: The conflict between Buddhism and Catholicism in Jack Kerouac’s life and writing by Simpson, Emily Patricia, MA NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

American Studies:

A study of the Zoot Suit culture: Past and present by Estrella, Lynda, MA CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON, 2003

Who’s afraid of the big bad lobo? Anglo and Western Apache reactions to the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program in the American Southwest, 1994-2002 by Fellowes, Simon Alexander, MS CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON, 2002

Madeline Izowsky, 1885-1979: A Polish woman in western Canada (Alberta, British Columbia) by Box, Carol Lynn, MA UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA), 2003

On our way to healing: Stories from the oldest living generation of the File Hills Indian Residential school (Saskatchewan) by Callahan (nee Thomas), Ann Blair, MA THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA (CANADA), 2002

Applications of chaos theory to history in the novels of Michael Ondaatje: Disorder within order in ‘The Collected Works of Billy the Kid’, ‘Coming Through Slaughter’ and ‘In the Skin of a Lion’ by McKenzie, Robert Murray, MA LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY (CANADA), 2002

Ka Isinakwak Askiy: Using Cree knowledge to perceive and describe the landscape of the Wapusk National Park area (Manitoba) by M’Lot, Maria Anne, MNRM THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA (CANADA), 2002

Educational travel for societal change: An exploration of popular education along the Mexico-United States border by Perin, Jodi Rae, MA THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, 2003

The perspective of two-spirit Aboriginal people by Slutchuk, Rishona Judith, MA THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA (CANADA), 2003

Towards moral and ethical research in collaboration with First Nation communities by Stevenson, Earl Conrad, MNRM THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA (CANADA), 2002

Alaska Native subsistence and sovereignty: An unfinished work by Wolf, Barbara Frances, MA THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, 2003

Fine Arts:

Diurnal rhythms: The daily life and art of a Mexican American migrant by Munoz, Lillia, MFA THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS - PAN AMERICAN, 2003

Folklore:

Beacon in the night: Contested space and regional culture on the central Oregon coast by Roman, Melissa Jane, MA UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

Geography:

Along Highway 16: A creative meditation on the geography of northwestern British Columbia by de Leeuw, Sarah, MA UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA), 2002

Music geography across the borderline: Musical iconography, mythic themes, and North American perceptions of a borderlands landscape by Huefe, Edward George, III, MA CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH, 2002

‘Where have all the traplines gone?’: The mercury contamination of the English-Wabigoon River System and its consequences on the Ojibway of Grassy Narrows (Ontario) by Kneen, Soha, MA CARLETON UNIVERSITY (CANADA), 2002

Cowboy and western music: Its mark on the Southern California landscape by Fisher, Steve John, MA CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH, 2002

Theater:

Latina playwrights and cultural identity: Two views from north and south of the border (Sabina Berman, Sylvia Gonzalez S., Mexico) by Woods, Rosemarie Christine, MA UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - KANSAS CITY, 2003

Pioneers of the prairies: The folk plays of Gwen Pharis Ringwood by Kivisto, Mikko William, MFA UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY (CANADA), 2002

Chinese Americans: Builders of early California and the West by Cheung, Henry Fay, MA CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON, 2003

Empanadas on the Fourth of July: An historical and cultural mapping of the Argentinian-American community in California’s Los Angeles Basin, San Fernando Valley, and Orange County by Haider, Carlota Ferreyra, MA CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON, 2003

Governor James V. Allred, Hispanics, and the rule of law in New Deal Texas (Texas, James V. Allred) by Marlin, Robert Ossian, IV, MA UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON-CLEAR LAKE, 2003

Agencies of change: The use of education and advertising to promote modernity to rural Nevada women, 1920-1940 by McBride, Beverly Haskett, MA UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO, 2003

Cherokee Indian removal: The Treaty of New Echota and General Winfield Scott by McMillan, Ovid Andrew, MA EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

We still tell stories: An examination of Cherokee oral literature by Hannah, Leslie Deon, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, 2002

Faces of Thoreau in American literature (Henry David Thoreau, Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee, Edward Abbey, Hayden Carruth) by Hartman, Steven P., PhD STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY, 2003

‘We are the people’: Native American and Chicano/a literatures as intersecting indigenous literatures of the American Southwest by Hebebrand, Christina Marlis, PhD CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY, 2002

Body matters: Gary Snyder, the self and ecopoetics by Murray, Matthew Dodd, PhD UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS, 2000

Ethnographic criticism and Native American fiction: Cultural texts, textual culture in the novels of James Welch by Nelson, Christopher R., PhD UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, 2002

The rhetoric of authority and the death metaphor (James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison) by Noel, Deborah Ann, PhD UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, 2003

Conversation and teaching: Awakening, nurturing, and sustaining a moral vision (Mark Twain, May Sarton) by Ozga, Janice Sweetman, PhD UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, 2002

Place, writing, and identity: The construction of in-between world subjects (Sandra Cisneros, Joy Kogawa, Sally Morgan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Cleo Odzer) by Pragatwutisarn, Chutima, PhD STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BINGHAMTON, 2002

Policing the border: Politics and place in the work of Miguel Mendez, Marisela Norte, and Leslie Marmon Silko by Pritchard, Demian Lee, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO, 2003

Education in irony: United States ‘literacy crisis’ and the literature of American Bildung (Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, James Weldon Johnson, Willa Cather) by Puente, David Loren, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE, 2003

‘That mongrel moral sense’: A study of Mark Twain’s satire by Stanion, Charles Boyd, PhD UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA, 2003

Conceptualizing American Indian literary theory: Oral theories and written traditions (N. Scott Momaday, Gerald Vizenor, Robert J. Conley) by Teuton, Christopher Barett, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON, 2003

From Edwards to Dillard: Puritan mysticism and the tropology of American nature writing (Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Annie Dillard) by Vanderspek, Dennis Randolph John, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO (CANADA), 2002

Looking backward, looking forward: Visions of utopia and progress in turn-of-the-century American literature [Twain, Wister, Cather] by Vella, Lia Mary, PhD STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO, 2003

Imagining solitude: Epistolarity in the novels of the Early Republic (James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville) by Wakabayashi, Makiko, PhD STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO, 2003

The recycling of the Mohicans: The ‘classic’ novel and iterative adaptation (James Fenimore Cooper, Michael Mann, George B. Seitz, Clarence Brown, Maurice Tourneur) by Williams, Michael Allen, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER, 2002

From Cooper to Le Carre: The engagement of reality in the evolution of espionage fiction (James Fenimore Cooper, John Le Carre, with original writing) by Woods, Brett F., PhD UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX (UNITED KINGDOM), 2003

Finding ourselves in empty places: Life and literature of the Midwest (Minnesota, Nebraska) by Wright-Peterson, Virginia Marlaine, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA - LINCOLN, 2002

The construction of ethnicity in modern American literature, 1900-1945: Writing and reading ethnic narratives (Ezra Pound, William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather) by Wu, Yi-Ping, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS, 2003

Peter Matthiessen and the literature of environmental justice: ‘All problems merge’ by Yamashiro, Shin, PhD UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO, 2003

Speaking a word for nature: Representations of nature and culture in four genres of American environmental writing (Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, David Quammen, Richard Powers) by Zuelke, Karl William, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI, 2003

American Studies:

Defining Americans: Nation, state, and the politics of racial mixture, 1885-1905 by Basson, Lauren Louise, PhD UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, 2002

Aloha America: Hawaiian entertainment and cultural politics in the United States empire by Imada, Adria L., PhD NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 2003

Stories of Canada: National identity in late-nineteenth-century English-Canadian fiction by Hedler, Elizabeth Esther, PhD UNIVERSITY OF MAINE, 2003

Colonizing bodies: Aboriginal health and healing in British Columbia, 1900-1950 by Kelm, Mary-Ellen, PhD UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (CANADA), 1995

From diaspora to North American civil rights: Chinese Canadian ideas, identities and brokers in Vancouver, British Columbia, 1924 to 1960 by Mar, Lisa Rose, PhD UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO (CANADA), 2002

Creating a countryside in British Columbia: An alternative modernity, 1919-1935 by Murton, James Ernest, PhD QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY AT KINGSTON (CANADA), 2002

On the hook: Welfare capitalism on the Vancouver waterfront, 1919-1939 (British Columbia) by Parnaby, Andrew, PhD MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND (CANADA), 2001

The public emergence of the vocabulary of First Nations’ self-government: A study of the language as an indicator of ethical and social attitudes in the formation of metapolicy and the discourse of First Nations’ autonomy by Posluns, Michael Wilfred, PhD YORK UNIVERSITY (CANADA), 2002

Reading the farm in prairie literature by Mahoney, Shelley Lorraine, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA (CANADA), 2002

Islands at the boundary of the world: Changing representations of Haida Gwaii, 1774-2001 (British Columbia) by Martineau, Joel Barry, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA), 2002

‘Where is the voice coming from?’: Transformations in told-to narrative since 1969 by McCall, Sophie, PhD YORK UNIVERSITY (CANADA), 2002

Canadian Studies:

The relocation of Aboriginal people in Canada, 1952 to 1967: A United Nations human rights analysis from a cultural perspective, cultural genocide by Dawson, Peter Edward, PhD YORK UNIVERSITY (CANADA), 2002

‘Bound to improve’: Canadian women’s prairie memoirs and intersections of culture, history and identity by Matthews, Sandra Leigh, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY (CANADA), 2002

Cinema:

Perversions of romance: A look at love in fiction and film by Mexicanas and Chicanas (Angeles Mastretta, Corin Tellado, Maria Novaro, Sandra Cisneros, Denise Chavez) by Becker, Stephanie Graham, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2003

Race and coming-of-age in American films of the 1960s: The tragic mulatta and the half-breed by Dale, Elaine M., PhD THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2002

Last man becoming: The development of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man With No Name’ persona in Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns and its reflections in 1960s American and Italian culture by Hadjitarkhani, Abie, PhD STANFORD UNIVERSITY, 2003

The promotion of early Hollywood: Racial, ethnic, and national identity in text and context by Latham, James Richard, PhD NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, 2003

Darkening frontier, vanishing outback: Film, landscape and national identities in Australia and the United States by Lindsay, Brian William Ian, PhD UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA), 2001

A truth not perfectly visible: Culture and cognition in the Borderline narrative by McCord, Patrick Thomas, PhD UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, 2002

The gunfighter’s shadow: The iconography of Clint Eastwood, 1965-2000 by Weiss, Geoffrey Coleman, PhD UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY, 2003

Cultural Anthropology:

Vestiges of other relations: Weaving our lives across a two-nation divide (Texas, Mexico) by Aguirre, Elea, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA, 2002

The role of ritual in a contemporary Ojibwa tribe (Michigan) by Pelletier, Julie Anne, PhD MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, 2002

Contemporary Lakota identity: Melda and Lupe Trejo on ‘being Indian’ by Petrillo, Larissa Suzanne, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA), 2002

Politics of cursing: Imagining human difference in a British Columbia mining town by Robertson, Leslie Anne, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA), 2001

Healing among the Lakota Sioux: Towards an understanding of indigenous healing ceremonies by Simons, Sheila Renee, PhD SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY AT CARBONDALE, 2002

Clothed encounters: The power of dress in relations between Anishnaabe and British peoples in the Great Lakes region, 1760-2000 by Silverstein, Cory Carole, PhD MCMASTER UNIVERSITY (CANADA), 2001

Skilquewat: On the trail of Property Woman. The life story of Freda Diesing (British Columbia) by Slade, Mary Anne Barbara, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA), 2002

My father’s name was Zahtah: Constructing the life history of Alfred Chalepah, Sr. (Oklahoma) by Stokely, Michelle D., PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, 2003

Kinaalda: Dine women knowledge by Toledo-Benalli, Eulynda Jean, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2003

Coyote’s bare bones: The politics of recognition. A case study of the Honey Lake Maidu and the Federal Acknowledgment process (California) by Tolley, Sara-Larus Canfield, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, 2002

First (national) space: (Ab)original (re)mappings of British Columbia by Brealey, Kenneth George, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA), 2003

Land use history and vegetation change on the Point Reyes Peninsula, California by Carlson, Charles Thomas, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS, 2003

From the foothills to the crest: Landscape history of the southern Manzano Mountains, Central New Mexico, United States of America since 1800 by Huebner, Donald James, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 2002

Modernization and sense of place in a rural region of northern British Columbia by Larsen, Soren Christiansen;, PhD UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 2002

Saints, peaches and wine: Mexican migrants and the transformation of Los Haro, Zacatecas and Napa, California by Nichols, Sandra Lucile, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, 2002

The political life of forests in Northern New Mexico by Kosek, Jon Gregory, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, 2002

Environmental justice and American-Indian sovereignty: Political, economic, and ethnic struggles regarding the storage of radioactive waste by Ishiyama, Noriko, PhD RUTGERS STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY-NEW BRUNSWICK, 2002

Potters’ choices: The social construction of pottery-making technologies at Acoma and Laguna pueblos, New Mexico by Olsen, Nancy Hulbert, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2002

An exploration of place attachment in the Jackson Hole Valley (Wyoming) by Smaldone, Dave, PhD UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO, 2002

The democratization of nature: State-park development during the New Deal by Smith, Langdon, Jr., PhD UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, 2002

The evolution of federal and Montana policies toward abandoned hardrock mines as interpreted from legislation, regulatory programs, and selected interviews by Stiller, David Martin, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY (CANADA), 2002

Native American women and literacy: Looking through and beyond a thematic view of the landscape of literacy in six Lakota women’s lives by Gutwein, Geraldine Mendoza, PhD INDIANA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 2003

Borderlands children’s theatre: The roles and representations of Mexican-American children in Chicana/o drama for young audiences by Aragon, Cecilia Josephine, PhD ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

U.S. History:

The United Mine Workers of America moves west: Race, working class formation, and the discourse on cultural diversity in the Union Pacific coal towns of southern Wyoming, 1870-1930 by Aiken, Ellen Schoening, PhD UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER, 2002

Agricultural labor, race, and Indian policy on the Round Valley Reservation, 1850-1941 (California) by Bauer, William John, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, 2003

Damming the Bighorn: Indian reserved water rights on the Crow Reservation, 1900-2000 (Montana) by Benson, Megan Kathleen, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, 2003

Prep school cowboys: The education of the elite at western ranch schools (Arizona) by Bingmann, Melissa, PhD ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

‘Fluid boundaries’: Southern California, Baja California, and the conflict over the Colorado River, 1848-1944 by Boime, Eric I., PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO, 2002

A biographical study of television news pioneer Elmer W. Lower by Cressman, Dale L., PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, 2003

Financing the Mexican War (James Polk) by Cummings, James William, PhD OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

The Meskwaki and Sol Tax: Reconsidering the actors in action anthropology (Iowa) by Daubenmier, Judith Marie, PhD UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, 2003

‘Much of the Indian appears’: Adaptation and persistence in a Creek community, 1783-1854 (Alabama) by Davis, Karl Langston, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, 2003

The Altamont Festival revisited: Myth, reality, and the uses of the past (California) by Delhomme-Cutchin, Claudine, PhD SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY AT CARBONDALE, 2002

Anti-Chinese violence in the American Northwest: From community politics to the international diplomacy, 1885-1888 (Wyoming) by Dettmann, Jeffrey Alan, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 2002

The case for place: 80 years of demographic and economic change in the boom and bust Pacific Northwest by Ewert, Eric Carl, PhD UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO, 2003

People of the river: A history of the Columbia River Indians, 1855-1945 (Oregon) by Fisher, Andrew Hardy, PhD ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

Island city: The story of Galveston on the eve of secession, 1850-1860 (Texas) by Fornell, Earl Wesley, PhD RICE UNIVERSITY, 1955

Enclosed worlds in open space: Federal communities and social experience in the American West (Utah, Oregon, New Mexico) by Fryer, Heather E., PhD BOSTON COLLEGE, 2002

Feast of souls: Indians and Spaniards in the seventeenth-century missions of Florida and New Mexico by Galgano, Robert Christopher, PhD THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY, 2003

Home for the holidays: Anglo-Protestants and Christmas in Northern California, 1849-1900 by Georges, Judith Laura, PhD GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION, 2003

Instruments of incorporation: Rangers, Mounties, and the North American frontier, 1875-1910 by Graybill, Andrew R., PhD PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, 2003

‘Sisters of Mercy, mothers to the afflicted’: Female-created space in San Francisco 1854 through the turn of the century (California) by Hartfield, Anne Elizabeth, PhD THE CLAREMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

‘We were not tramp sheepmen’: Resistance and identity in the Oregon Basque community, accustomed range rights, and the Taylor Grazing Act, 1890-1955 by Hatfield, Kevin Dean, PhD UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, 2003

World War I and local change in America: Federal war production and class relations in Portland, Oregon by Hodges, Adam Jonathan, PhD UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, 2002

‘There are no trees here’: Norwegian women encounter the northern prairies and plains by Lahlum, Lori Ann, PhD UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO, 2003

Acculturation of the Dakota Sioux: The boarding school experience for students at Flandreau and Pipestone Indian schools (South Dakota, Minnesota) by Landrum, Cynthia Leanne, PhD OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2002

Wars within war: Mexican guerillas, domestic elites and the Americans, 1846-1848 by Levinson, Irving Walter, PhD UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON, 2003

Burying the war hatchet: Spanish-Comanche relations in colonial Texas, 1743-1821 by Lipscomb, Carol A., PhD UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS, 2002

‘El descanso: A comparative history of the Los Angeles Plaza area and the shared racialized space of the Mexican and Chinese communities, 1853-1933 (California) by Lopez, Cesar, PhD UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, 2002

Tuberculosis, the Navajos, and Western healthcare providers, 1920-1960 (Arizona, New Mexico) by MacMahon, Sandra Varney, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2003

Making history: Historic preservation and the creation of western civic identity (New Mexico, Washington, Colorado) by Moley, Judith Mattivi, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, 2002

Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American popular music, 1850s-1920s by Moon, Krystyn Rozalia, PhD THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, 2003

Asserting Americanness: Race, religion, and nationalism in the turn-of-the-century American West by Moos, Daniel J., PhD STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO, 2003

Asian-Pacific-American identities: An historical perspective through the theatre productions of the East West Players, 1965 to 2000 by Morioka-Steffens, Tamayo Irene, PhD THE CLAREMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY, 2003

The fire this time: The battle over racial, regional and religious identities in Dallas, Texas, 1860-1990 by Phillips, Joseph Michael, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, 2002

Consuming Colorado: Landscapes, leisure, and the tourist way of life by Philpott, William Peter, PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON, 2002

To ‘hear about God in Spanish’: Ethnicity, Church, and community activism in the San Francisco Archdiocese’s Mexican American colonias, 1942-1965 (California) by Pitti, Gina Marie, PhD STANFORD UNIVERSITY, 2003

‘I belong in this world’: Native Americanisms and the western Industrial Workers of the World, 1905-1917 (Frank Little) by Ronning, Gerald Francis Wilhelm, PhD UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER, 2002

American dreams derailed: Japanese railroad and mine communities of the Interior West by Russell, Andrew Benjamin, PhD ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, 2003